


down the burning ropes

by ailhsa_23



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 06:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8700664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailhsa_23/pseuds/ailhsa_23
Summary: She wasn't sure that she could love anyone.
(Story and chapter title - Down the Burning Ropes by James Vincent McMorrow)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted at HPFF under the penname: lia_2390

In the growing darkness of an office, a young woman sat at her desk in silence. Papers stacked in neat piles in front of her almost forming a wall behind which she hid from sight. She sat with her legs crossed in a chair which swivelled every now and then beneath her. When it did, it caught her off-guard; she wasn't quite used to it yet, even after her ten months of working there. 

Her dark blue robes pooled in a haphazard heap on top of her parchment piles since she tossed them there a few hours earlier. She knew she should be working - the papers won't file themselves away after all - but she couldn't. 

Her boss called her into his office on his way in that morning, but he refused - even before they could begin - to look her in the eye. He had been acting odd for months now, for reasons she could not begin to understand. They were well past the point of men acting strangely because a woman shared the same office space, but that had not stopped them from considering her to be beneath them. She would continue to prove herself though, she was sure of it.

She sat in his office and watched with apprehension as he packed his things away. In his heavy robes, he looked even more uncomfortable than usual. The frown on his face deepened.

"What is it?" She broke the silence, tapping her foot on the well-worn, crimson-coloured carpet.

"I'm not sure how to say this." His cheeks reddened and he looked down at the floor.

She frowned, from the time she'd worked here and even on her summer internship while still at Hogwarts, she had never seen Elphinstone Urquart behave in this way. He held meetings with all head Aurors across Europe, and rumour had it that he met Rasputin outside the Kremlin years after the monarchy fell.

"Just spit it out." The woman's tapping became unbearable, even for her, and the strain in her voice was not lost on the man who stood before her. For a brief moment, she regretted her impatience. She owed him more than that.

Sighing, he pulled a small, velvet box from his trouser pocket and placed it on the only paper free spot on his cluttered desk, which happened to be in front of his young employee. 

"I want to marry you, Minerva."

The young woman known as Minerva felt her jaw fall open. Everything hit her at once and for the first time in her life, she was speechless.

As if noticing her distress, Urquart held up a hand. "Think about it." He gestured to the box. "I'll understand if you don't accept. You still have some more living to do, I suppose."

He ran a hand through his dark hair, littered with streaks of grey, and over his lined face. His lips curved upward in a humourless smile as he met her stunned gaze.  
Minerva caught herself and managed a small smile. Of course he would say that.

She curled her fingers around the box and nodded. "I'll think about it."

She supposed it was the least she could have said then. Even after he gave her a small yet hopeful smile as she left his office that morning, all she remembered feeling was stunned. 

There was nothing in the past that could have possibly led to this. She was too caught up in her work. Too driven? There was nothing wrong with that. She wanted to be as good as Moody was, or even better. Maybe one day, she'd be as legendary as Urquart himself. 

The soft sound of a shoe scuffing on the floor made her look up. She smiled as a string of swearing followed it. Alastor Moody hopped down the corridor over an overturned basket of doxy eggs someone left there. She was sure that in his short time working in the Department he'd encountered a lot of dangers, but perhaps none as surprising as a careless colleague.

"Bloody idiot," he snapped to the air, "leaving his mess all over the place."

She saw him freeze as he spotted her face illuminated by the lamp.

"Oh, McGonagall," he limped over to her desk and leaned on the back of a chair across from her desk. "You’re still here?"

She nodded, sweeping the small box into her lap and out of his line of sight. "I still have some work to finish before I go home."

"Ever the ambitious one, aren't we?" His thin lips curved into a wry smile.

"We all can't be like you, Alastor." 

His low chuckle echoed within the confines of the room. "No, you can't."

He pushed off the chair and resumed his walk to his desk. She watched as he rifled through a stack of papers until he found the one he wanted. He smirked when he turned around to find her still watching him.

"There's no treasure buried here." He folded the parchment and stuffed it in the pocket of his robes.

"No, but I'm quite sure there's a map," she answered with a smile.

Moody scratched the middle of his dirty blonde hair and grinned. "Good night, Minerva."

She gave no reply and waited until she heard the door click behind him before placing the box back on the desk. She wasn't sure how many people knew about her boss's feelings, but she preferred to keep it to herself for the time being. A part of her wanted to tell Moody, even though she suspected that he knew somehow. Alastor Moody knew everything but the timing wasn't right; he had his own share of problems. 

Sighing, she opened the box to look at the ring. It was a simple little thing - a thin, gold band with a small diamond set in the middle - which, if she tried it, would fit perfectly on her finger. If she tried it. Apparently he knew her better than she thought. 

What it meant to be married to someone was important, but love came much higher on that list. Her mother married her father because of it, and it ruined her. It ruined everything. She never considered herself as much of a romantic, but someone came along to change that. His name was Dougal.

She squeezed her eyes shut at the thought of him - the sweet farmer's boy who she let go and without him knowing, still held her heart - but he would never accept her if he knew the truth. Even if he did, she did not want to end up like her mother, living in misery because her husband was too ashamed of what she was. Elphistone was different in that regard and they were alike in many ways, but she wasn't sure that she could love him. 

Minerva pinched the bridge of her nose. She wasn’t sure that she could love anyone.

 

\-----

 

Autumn had come upon them suddenly. Leaves turned their colours right before her eyes from green to bronze. When she was a child she loved to watch them turn and waited with her mother to watch the first one fall from the tree in their backyard. She thought there was something special about that moment. A secret the universe wanted to share with her and her alone. As she grew older, she realised that the universe did not like to share.

Minerva enjoyed her walks to the Ministry every morning. It was the time of day that was still quiet where she was free to her thoughts. This morning she really needed that freedom, but for some reason it felt quite different. Even in October she expected a change in the weather, cooler, but not biting. As she set foot into the Atrium, she felt a chill. She paused by one of the lifts to look around, all the fireplaces were lit, but she could not tell why the heat made no difference. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move in the shadows. At the far end of the Atrium, she saw the outline of a man slowly pulling away from the shadows. He was certainly tall, but there was something about the way he stared at her...she felt uneasy. 

Her finger found the lift button faster than usual and she pushed it. She didn't understand why her heart hammered away in her chest. When the lift doors finally opened, she slipped in and leaned against the wall. As she looked up again, she saw the man in front of the doors with a smile on his face. He was good-looking, but in a cruel way with wavy dark hair. His robes fitted him snugly across his broad chest. A flash of recognition washed over her.

"Hello, Minerva," he whispered.

His name fell out of her mouth as the doors clanged shut.

"Tom?"

 

\----

 

Her body shook as she stumbled out of the elevator. Even as her heart calmed itself, her insides felt frozen. Tom Riddle was known to have that effect on people. Behind the politeness and charm, there was something underneath it - something she never could put her finger on.

To her classmates, Tom Riddle was everything. To the teachers, he was the perfect student. Girls gawked and giggled as he passed them in the corridor. Most of the time, he never had the slightest inclination to look in their direction, but for some reason his eyes always found hers. She too found him attractive, she would have to be blind not to notice, but she felt he was too charming for his own good. 

She absently greeted one of the secretaries as she entered her department and made a beeline for her desk. Sinking down in her chair, her eyes found a memo with Elphinstone Urquart's signature at the bottom of the parchment. Tom's appearance distracted her from the big issue at hand, and only now had her thoughts come flooding back.  
She glanced up at the clock and back to Urquart's name. It was nearly seven and the rest of the Department would arrive within the hour. Maybe if she just slipped out before they arrived… she could call in sick. No, that won't work, someone already saw her. Minerva huffed, this was not like her to shirk responsibilities, she was more sensible than this.   
The bile rose in her throat as time ticked away. It wasn't that she did not consider the proposal; she spent over half the night thinking about his words. It's not that she did not care for him either, but she did not feel she was ready for this. Though, it would be nice to move on from Dougal, it has been over a year. 

No. 

She shook her head. This won't do at all. Minerva scribbled a note to leave with the secretary and gathered her things. She needed some air.

 

\-----

 

There was a bench under a tree where she liked to eat her lunch or sometimes go to think when a case proved to be more difficult than she expected. She managed to slip out of the office before anyone else came in, but she did have some difficulty in the Atrium where Alastor Moody stood in deep conversation by a fireplace by the exit. She hadn't seen Tom Riddle either.

She unbuttoned her robes and draped them over the back of the bench and stretched. She'd fallen asleep in an armchair the night before with Urquart's velvet box in her hand. The same box sat at the bottom of her bag where she tucked it this morning. 

She stared out at the road from her bench. Her friends usually came to her for advice over the years, but she found that her wisdom never fared well enough when it came to her own problems. Beside her, the weight of the bench shifted and a chill blew past her ear. She almost flew off of the bench at the sight of him sitting there. Tom Riddle allowed a smirk to grace his pale features.

"Goodness, Tom." Her chest heaved with every breath as the colour rose in her cheeks. "Couldn't you have warned me?"

He smiled, showing a set of straight, white teeth. "What would be the fun in that?"

Minerva frowned down at him keeping her arms folded across her chest. As if he sensed her discomfort, Tom rose smoothly from off the bench and reached for her hand. She bit her lip and after some hesitation, extended it. His lips found the back of her hand and he smiled, making her blink in surprise.

"Is that your idea of an apology?" she swallowed after finding her voice again.

He merely smiled and sat down on the bench, extending his arm in invitation. Minerva kept to her side of the bench which, much to her dismay, amused him even more. A low chuckle came from his mouth and he inched closer to her. 

"Do I make you uncomfortable, Minerva?" His voice was laced with mockery. 

"Of course not," she muttered, gripping her bag tight. She silently berated herself for feeling so foolish around him. He's had this affect on her before, but not as pronounced. They worked together at Hogwarts when he was Head Boy and she, the 5th year Gryffindor Prefect. Oftentimes she found that he watched her with interest. Some of her friends were a bit jealous at the fixed attention she received. She brushed it off as being nothing, but almost two years later, she couldn't quite say the same.

"How have you been, Tom?" She turned her body to face him and tried to smile. ”I haven’t seen you since you left Hogwarts. I expected to find you working here.” 

The chill she felt earlier seeped through the wood of the bench and through her skin. His features became less jovial than they were before, but he smiled nonetheless at the memory.

"I wanted to travel, to see the world." His voice became quieter.

"Where did you go?" she looked upon him with interest. She remembered that night not too long ago that he confided in her about his future. A rare, honest moment she doubted anyone had ever seen. She wondered what had changed.

"Eastern Europe, mostly. I learned the ways of those people when I lived among them for that time." His eyes darkened, the brown pools she admired as a girl were slowly drawing her in.

"And what did you learn?" she only just realised that they were sitting close together and their fingers were a hair's breadth apart. 

He smiled again, dipping his head to whisper in her ear. She felt the heat rise up her neck when he looked at her. Absently, her fingers wrapped around his and he pulled her closer to him, so that she could feel his breath on her face. His head dipped again and she closed her eyes as his lips grazed her neck. His teeth sank gently into her skin making his name escape her lips in a strangled cry. But then she saw a familiar face and remembered why she came out to the bench in the first place. She pulled away from him and fumbled with the buttons on her blouse that had come loose from his prying.

To her surprise, he wasn't angry. He merely laughed. She remembered he had this way about him that drew people in. Her roommates and some of the older girls talked about meeting him in a dark corridor and five minutes later, they left with hands to their lips and heaving chests. 

"Does this mean you're accepting his proposal?" he asked her with a smirk.

Minerva gasped; any words she tried to speak came out as a stammer. When he laughed again, she flinched, it was higher than before. Urquart’s face swam into view again as if he was standing in front of them. In truth, there was no one there. Tom Riddle was toying with her, or maybe it was the guilt. 

"What have you done to yourself, Tom?" she said at last.

"Something more powerful than you can ever imagine."

 

\-----

 

He left her there under the shade of the tree then. Her neck still felt raw where he left it and her skin was warm. As quick as he appeared before her, he vanished from sight. She doubted very much that she would see him again. She wasn't sure what to make of him now. Whatever he learned during his brief time abroad brought to life what he tried to hide from them all for years. 

It would be hours before she returned to the office. In that time, she made up her mind about what she would do about her proposal. In the end, she felt that being alone might serve her better. 

 

She would come to find, in her later life, that it usually did.


End file.
